


At the Gate of Your Grave

by To_Each_His_Own



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Dysfunctional Family, Explicit Language, Gen, Kid Daryl, Kid Daryl Dixon, Kid Fic, Racist Language, Will Dixon is an asshole, playing fast and loose with the timeline here
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-22
Updated: 2019-02-07
Packaged: 2019-10-14 07:19:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17504099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/To_Each_His_Own/pseuds/To_Each_His_Own
Summary: Daryl Dixon was nine years old when the dead start walking





	1. Chapter 1

Like usual, Daryl awoke to the sounds of his father’s curses bleeding through the thin walls of their home. With a start, he bolted out of the bed and ran to peer out the window, pushing aside the old bed sheet that doubled as a curtain.The sun was high in the sky. He’d missed the school bus. Again. _Shit!_  Daryl had two options here. The first was to wait it out in his room for his dad to pass out, sneak out his window, find someplace to hole up for the day, and then come back like nothing ever happened. Or he could ask his dad to take him to school. Either way Daryl was screwed. His first option ran the risk of the school calling to ask why his son wasn’t in class, which would earn him a mighty fierce beating whenever he slinked back home. The second would get him a beating for being so irresponsible and wasting his daddy’s gas up. He was truly between a rock and a hard place. But he _really_  didn’t want to miss another day, and Ms. Williams was the first really nice teacher he’d had (even if his daddy thought she was nothing but a ‘liberal, mulatto bitch’).

“Dad’s gon’ kill me.” He went to his tiny closet and grabbed the first pair of jeans and shirt he could find that wasn’t too noticeably dirty. Daryl hadn’t gotten a chance to wash any of his clothes yet since they'd been out of laundry detergent for a while. Usually some dish washing liquid would work in a pinch, but they’d been out of that too, and he’d been too afraid of making his dad angry by telling him. But it was fine though, Daryl had gotten good at not letting his clothes get too dirty. Just in case.

He grabbed his beat-up, hand-me-down book bag from the corner of his room and made his way to the living room, flinching at each loud curse he heard from his dad as he came closer. At first, when he stepped into the living room, he was confused. There were boxes covering almost every surface filled with what looked like all the canned food in the pantry. A couple of the huge value packs of water his dad kept in the garbage were propping open the front door, both his dad’s and his own bow sat on the couch, but most alarmingly of all, his dad stood, ramrod straight, staring at the news show on TV with his truck keys clenched tightly in his hand. He looked __scared__. And in all of his life Daryl had only ever seen his dad scared once: the day they were laying to rest the charred remains of his mom.

“We movin’ or sum’? ‘S goin’ on, Dad?” Instead of replying, Will Dixon just turned away from the small TV and went back to haphazardly closing up the boxes he had spread around him. Daryl moved closer and tugged on the hem of Will’s shirt. “Missed the bus. I gotta go to school, Dad.”

Will jerked away from him, nearly sending Daryl to the ground. “’stead of just standin’ there like a goddamn lump why don’t ya start gettin’ this shit into the truck. We gotta __go__.”

“Where we goin’?”

“I know ya ain’t smart, boy, but yer sure as hell ain’t dumb neither. Do what I say ‘n get this shit in the truck **_**_NOW_**_**!”

Daryl knew better than to argue with his dad when he took on that tone of voice. Usually when Will started to get that steely edge creeping into his words Daryl knew that the belt wasn’t too far from coming off, and he’d do best to make himself scarce. So instead of asking all the questions that were dancing on his tongue, he slung his backpack on, grabbed the box that seemed the least difficult to carry, and started to drag it out the front door. His scrawny arms were burning with the effort, but he didn’t dare stop lest he feel the wrath of Will Dixon.

Daryl wasn’t sure what he should do once he got to the truck. It looked like most of their meager possessions were already loaded into the back of the pickup, and what was left he knew he wouldn’t be able to help load. So instead, he sat on the oil stained driveway and watched. It was almost hypnotic, seeing his dad bounce around so frantically. He moved with an agency that Daryl had never seen in his nine years. Like his dad said: he weren’t smart, but he sure as hell weren’t dumb neither. He noticed things. Like the fact that, as much as he loved him, Will Dixon was a no good, lazy piece of shit. He knew they were trailer park trash playing at trying to be a ‘normal family’ living in a too small, too expensive house (at least according to Merle) in a neighborhood they couldn’t afford. But most importantly, from the short glance he caught on the TV and his dad’s increasingly frantic behavior, he knew that something serious was going on and they were in deep shit.

Will had finally loaded everything into the truck. It was almost sad seeing their entire lives broken down into a handful of boxes and trash bags in the back of a beat up old truck. Will threw the last case of bottled water into the trunk and pushed the tailgate up with force.

“Get your ass in gear, kid. We gotta get the fuck out of here.”

 

* * *

 

They rode in silence for a long time, which wasn’t anything too unusual for a Dixon family outing. Will was never a man of many words, and Daryl never had much to say anyway. Merle, however, was a different story. His older brother talked as if the second he closed his mouth he’d cease to exist. And for a man that had so much to say, it never seemed to be anything all that important either. He wondered where Merle was at right now. Last he’d heard Merle had been shipped off to basic in Fort Jackson. Daryl wasn’t too sure where that was, other than somewhere in South Carolina, but he hoped that he was alright. A smaller part of him hoped that was where they were going.

He hadn’t realized he’d been chewing on his finger until Will reached over and knocked it out of his mouth. “Awfully quiet there, kid.”

“Jus’ thinkin’.” He looked back out the window at the trees passing by them. The roads were unusually empty for this time of day. Daryl tried not to think about it.

“Yeah, ya always did do a lot of that.” He saw Will shift from the corner of his eye. “Listen here, Daryl, we need to talk. Some crazy shit’s goin’ down and I __need__  you t’ listen.”

Daryl turned back to look at his dad and saw him gnawing on the side of his thumb. Guess Daryl came by that honestly. “Yeah, ‘m listening.”

“We’re going to Atlanta ‘cause it’s gonna be safer for you ‘n me there. Somethin’ happened, I dunno what, but people got real sick. You with me so far?” Daryl nodded. “Okay, so people got real sick, no one knows how, and they died. ‘N when they died they came back as these-as these __things__ , and-and they __look__  like us, like people ya knew before, like yer friends, or family, or neighbors, but they ain’t them.” Will continued to chew on his thumb. “And I know this sounds crazy, trust me I do, but ya need to know what we’re up against if we’re gon’ survive this.”

“That what the news guy was sayin’ on TV earlier?”

“Yeah.” Will’s eyes flicked briefly from the road to him. “Didn’t think ya caught that.”

“Atlanta’s gonna be safe?”

Will hesitated for a second. “Well I ain’t too sure of nothin’ these days, but no matter what the city looks like when we get there, we gon’ survive. That’s what Dixon’s do.”

 

* * *

 

Daryl wasn’t sure when he’d fallen asleep, but he was jolted out of his sleep by the sound of his dad’s curse.

“’S goin’ on?”

They were stopped in what seemed like the middle of nowhere. The sun was starting to set, casting a faint orange glow on everything, and the only thing around them was two figures ahead, stumbling towards them down an empty road.

“Shit. __Shit__! Fuckin’ hell.”

“Who’s that.”

“Not __who__ , what. Open up the glove compartment, ‘n hand me my gun.” Daryl did so and his hands shook slightly as he took it out, it was a lot heavier than he’d expected. He’d never got to hold his dad’s gun before. Honestly, he’d never even seen him use it. They’d always preferred their bows. Much cleaner shot. Will took the piece out his hand and flicked the safety off. “Stay __here__. Don’t move, don’t say __shit__ , hell, don’t fuckin’ breathe too hard. Do you hear me?”

Daryl met his dad’s cold, blue eyes and nodded. “Don’t move, don’t talk, don’t breathe. Got it.”

“Alright.” Will takes a breath, bracing himself. Then he slowly opened the door, holding the gun to his chest.

Whatever those things were, their moans grow louder as they saw Will step out of the car. They weren’t too fast though, which gave him time to line his shot up. Daryl barely noticed how his dad’s hand shook as he aimed. Then fired. It was louder than he thought it’d be. The thing stumbled upon the impact, and Daryl saw the blood pouring from the shot to the chest. He’d seen blood plenty of times before. Once his dad had cut open the palm of hand when he slammed down a beer bottle too hard after Daryl asked him if he could go on a field trip a few months back. Merle had come home in the dead of the night countless times reeking of booze and sporting black eyes and broken, bloody noses. Even Daryl himself had been a bruised and bloody mess throughout the years, between skinned knees, busting his face falling out of trees, and catching the wrong angle of a belt buckle across his back. This was different thought. Nothing in his life had prepared him for seeing a man take a bullet to the chest and keep on moving.

“ _ _Shit__!” Will fired again. Shoulder. Again. Leg. Again. Head. It fell just as the other grabbed him and pinned him against the car.

Daryl froze, his entire body going cold as he watched his dad struggle against the thing that looked like it was trying to take a chunk out of his neck. He couldn’t think. It was almost as if his body was moving on its own. Even as his own mind was screaming out at him ‘don’t move, don’t speak don’t breathe’ nothing could make him stay in that truck any longer. He jumped out of the truck and ran over to where his dad was still struggling with whatever that thing was. It was letting out the most horrifying of groans, and the smell of it up close almost made Daryl vomit. It’s skin was a nasty, congealed mess of blood and dirt with a graying tint to it.

Will’s eyes were wild and frantic when he saw Daryl looking at him helplessly. He didn’t know what to do. And then he saw it. He didn’t know when in the scuffle his dad had dropped his gun, but there it was, not even three feet away from him. When he picked it up the metal was still warm. The gun barely fit in his tiny hands, but he aimed up at the thing’s head.

‘Don’t move, don’t speak, don’t breathe.’ He thought to himself. For some reason the mantra calmed him. Will Dixon never gave his son many words of wisdom, but there was always a first time for everything. He took one final breath and fired. Daryl hadn’t expected the gun to kick back and he fell to the ground. All he could hear was the ringing in his ears. A hell of a lot louder than he expected.

When he sat up he saw the thing slumped over on the ground, blood pooling out of it’s mangled face onto the pavement beneath it. It’s unblinking eyes stared at him. That was a sight he’d have trouble forgetting. Will looked at him, his eyes wide with shock, and blood splatter covering his face. The gun lay in the middle between them.

“Shit.” Will cursed and reached a shaking hand up to wipe the blood off his face. “I thought I told ya to stay in the truck.”

Daryl was silent, still staring at the thing he’d killed. He hadn’t even noticed when Will walked over and sat next to him until his dad grabbed his shoulder roughly and shook it.

“Don’t you __ever__  do sumthin’ so goddamm stupid ever again. Ya hear me?”

“But I saved y-” Will shook him again. His arm would no doubt be bruised tomorrow.

“Don’t talk back, dammit, listen for __once!__ I was handlin’ it. You’re gonna get us killed if I gotta keep lookin’ out to see what dumb shit yer doin’ every five goddamn minutes. If I tell you do somethin’ ya do it, if I tell you to stay somewhere you __do it__. Hell, if I tell ya to put a bullet in someone’s head you better believe you gon’ do it __without__  hesitation. And if shit like this happens again, you gonna stay your ass in that there truck, you gonna get down and hide til it’s quiet, and when you get out if I’m dead you better run until you find someplace safe, and then you figure that shit out. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes sir.” Daryl whispered, trying his best to will back the tears that were threatening to fall. He wouldn’t cry. Not here while Will was watching. That’d just make things so much worse. Dixons didn’t cry.

A branched snapped along the trees that were lining the road, and both of their heads turned just in time to see a young Asian man, about Merle’s age, step out of the woods with his gun drawn.

“I know you two are having a moment here, but you just fired off like eight rounds to kill two walkers so I’d get out out of here before you draw anymore attention to yourselves.”

Will grabbed the gun and stood, walking towards the guy. “Oh yeah, and just who the fuck are you?”

The guy smiled. “No one, just passing through and heard the O.K. Corral out here and thought I’d give you a little advice, man. Take it or leave it.” The Asian man looked at Daryl briefly. “But for your sake I’d take it and get as far away from Atlanta as possible. Hey kid.” The Asian man gave him a little wave. Daryl waved back.

“Nah, we’re headed up that ways, figured the military should be handlin’ everything right about now.”

He laughed. “Well they __were__ , at least right before they torched the place. Like I said, get the hell away from Atlanta.”

“Well ain’t that just fucking __great__!” Will kicked the thing that Daryl had killed. Walker? That’s what the Asian man had called them.

“Hey!” The Asian man surged forward and looked around them with nervous eyes. He then grabbed Will’s arm and tried to calm him down. “What did I just say about unwanted attention? You’re making way too much noise here?”

Will jerked his arm out of the man’s grasp. “Fuck __you__ , chink!” Daryl winced at the slur.

“Dad, calm down. It’s gonna be okay-”

“Fuck you, too! Don’t you get it, Daryl? We’re fucked. Atlanta? That’s gone! The troops? __Gone__. What the hell are we gonna do now? Huh? Gon’ tell me to __calm down__? Why don’t __you__  figure something out?”

“I-I don’t-”And Daryl couldn’t hold it in anymore. He cried. He cried for the walker he shot in the street, he cried because they couldn’t go to Atlanta anymore, and he cried because he didn’t know what else to do. His dad was right. They were fucked.

The Asian man looked up and down the street nervously before he took off his baseball cap and ran his hands through his hair. “We have a group.”

Will glared at him. “What?”

“We have a group. It’s not much, and we don’t have much, but it’s got to be better than whatever it is you two will do next. I’ve got a car parked about a mile or two up the way. We can go there and you can follow me back to camp.”

Will looked like he was about to argue, but when he looked over at Daryl who had stopped crying, but was still pink and sniffling, and it seemed like all the fight had finally left him. “Alright, well let’s go then chink.” The Asian man rolled his eyes as Will hopped into the truck.

He walked over to stand next to Daryl. “You okay, kid?”

“’m fine.” Daryl stood up and started to walk towards the passenger side of the truck. He weren’t no kid. He didn’t need no strangers pity. He hesitated for a second, though. The man was nice enough to offer them someplace to go when everything else had went to shit. “What’s your name? I ain’t callin’ ya chink.”

“Oh!” The man smiled at him. “I’m Glenn.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shit happens. That's life sometimes

Daryl wasn’t sure whether or not he liked Glenn. Yeah, the man had swooped in and saved both of them from what would surely have been a quick death if they had went into the city not knowing what was waiting for them, but _damn_ , he never knew when to quit talking. The entire ride to where Glenn had stashed his car was filled with either awkward attempts on Glenn’s part to get to know Daryl, or Glenn and Will arguing in the front seat over his Dad’s need to keep calling him ‘Miss Saigon’. Daryl didn’t know what that meant, but he knew how backwoods everyone thought his dad was, so he figured it couldn’t have been anything good. It usually wasn’t when it came to Will Dixon.

He was relieved when they made it to the location of Glenn’s beat-up car that looked like it would fall apart the minute it went over a bump too quickly, and he got out the truck and Daryl was able to go back to his usual shotgun position. Glenn had parked it off the street into the brush lining the road, and had covered it with branches. Smart. His dad always told him that disaster brought out the worst in people. That ‘even the most high falutin of folks were just a couple missed meals away from turning into looters, thieves, and murderers’.

“So our group is literally just ten miles or so that way.” Glenn gestured upwards the empty street they had pulled to the side of. “Everyone’s super nice, for the most part, so their shouldn’t be any problems with the two of you joining us. There’s even a few kids about Daryl’s age.”

That was a little worrying. Daryl had never been too good at making friends, what with him not being too keen on talking, and everyone knowing that the Dixon’s were a family to stay as far away as possible from. There was one kid he’d been friends with in the second grade, though. A little black boy named Cameron who’d just moved in down the street and liked Pokemon almost as much as he did. But Will put a stop to that real quick when he found out. No kid of his would be ‘voluntarily associating themselves with a nigger’, after all. Come to think of it, he’d never known his dad to have any friends himself, either. Yeah, there was the revolving group of guys Daryl would see out on the front porch drinking and smoking with his dad when he got off the school bus, but he wasn’t too sure that Will considered any of them friends. Just people to take up space so he wasn’t wallowing in his misery alone. Merle was a little different though. From what he remembered there was a couple guys that Merle would go off and get in trouble with, but Daryl hadn’t seen them around much before he’d been shipped off to basic.

Will reached over and slapped his finger out his mouth. He hadn’t realized he’d been gnawing on it again. He’d been doing that a lot today.

“Quit that shit or you gon’ end up eatin’ it one of these days.” Will ruffled his hair. He sure did hate it when his dad did that. He wasn’t a little kid anymore, which he said. To which Will laughed in response.

“Sure ya ain’t, kid.”

They heard Glenn’s engine turn over a few times before it started, and then they were off. As they drove down the road Daryl saw a couple walkers stumble out the tree line and reach out in vain towards them. It worried him how slowly Glenn was driving, especially considering they were trying to get to safety, and he could tell his dad was starting to get annoyed.

“ _ _Goddammit__ , kid, have a sense of urgency, for fuck’s sake. __Shit__.” He sighed and sank back in his seat. Will glanced over at him. “You okay there, kid?”

Daryl shrugged. “Yeah, ‘m fine.”

Will nodded. “Okay then, let’s talk.” Daryl resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Usually when Will meant ‘talk’ he meant he’d ramble on, saying the same things over and over again, Daryl would nod and be quiet, and if he said anything he’d get roughed up for talking back. “Alright, so we don’t know these people, for all we know they could be leadin’ us into a trap and rob us blind, so we gotta be ready. You see anyone, and I mean __anyone__ , so much as look at ya’ the wrong way you don’t hesitate. You gotchur’ bow, and ya obviously know how ta use a gun now. You keep that bow on ya, and stick close t’me, ya hear?”

Daryl nodded. He had a point, after all. As nice as Glenn seemed, it was true that they didn’t know these people or what they were heading into. And he learned at a young age that people weren’t always as nice as they seemed. There had been a drinking buddy of Will’s who taught him that real young. The man’s favorite thing to tell him had always been just how much he looked liked his momma. Daryl tried not to think about him too much.

Glenn stuck his hand out the window, signaling that he was about to turn, and then they were going down an unmarked, bumpy dirt road.

“Remember what I said.”

When they pulled in Daryl noticed that their group wasn’t so much of a group as it was a collection of cars, dirty tents, and suspicious glares when they entered into the clearing that had been arranged into a makeshift community. There was an area that seemed dedicated to trying it’s hardest to be a kitchen. Rusty lawn chairs and folding tables were sat up in some semblance of a dining room. They had laundry handing from whatever surface was available, and there was a small group of children gathered around a thin woman with short hair who looked to be reading to them. Peering out the window, Daryl could see a tall man with dark, curly hair in a police shirt walking towards them like the fiery wrath of hell was fueling his each and every step.

“Glenn, what the __fuck__  is this?” The man ran and hand through his hair and glared at Glenn when he got out of his car.

“They were going to Atlanta for shelter and I couldn’t just let them get themselves killed so I…” Glenn trailed off when he saw the look on the man’s face. “Oh, __c’mon__  Shane don’t be like. It’s the right thing.”

Daryl could tell Will was getting angry by the tense line of his shoulders and the way his hands clenched around the steering wheel. He hoped that his dad could keep it together long enough for them to have a chance at convincing the man, Shane, that they should stay. He didn’t know what they’d do if he made them leave. Sure, maybe they’d be able to make it on their own. It’s not like the Dixon’s had known a life of luxury before. Dinner was usually either of the canned and frozen variety, or, if Will was having a good day, whatever he’d hunted down while Daryl was at school. Yeah, they’d have a chance of making it, but if there was any other option to be had they should take it.

Shane laughed. “ _ _Help__? How’n the hell is bringing two strangers up in our camp full of __women and children__  helping? For all we know they could be comin’ in here to take all our shit and steal off! Fuckin’ hell, kid, don’t you ever think?”

Finally Will couldn’t take it any longer and he stepped out of the truck. Everyone turned to look at him. Glenn, Shane, and the nameless others who’d gathered to watch the screaming match in the middle of the camp. Daryl opened up his backpack and took the gun out. The feel of the cool metal in his hand made him think of the walker he’d gunned down in the street earlier. He slipped it between the waist of his pants and his back, just like he’d seen his dad do so many times before, and stepped out the truck. Daryl suppressed a shiver when eyes turned to look at him. He had a feeling this wouldn’t end well.

“You’re talkin’ awfully familiar for a man who don’t know shit about me or my own.” Will spat on the ground and met Shane’s stare straight on. “Now I don’t know about the lot of y’all but I ain’t no pervert and I ain’t no thief.”

Shane took a step forward but Glenn but an arm out in front of him, trying to hold him back. “Come __on__ , man. He’s got a kid.” Shane’s eyes flicked to Daryl quickly, but went back to staring at Will with as much hatred and distrust as he could muster. “They’re not-they’re not __bad people__ , Shane.”

“Yeah, Shane.” Will grinned. “We ain’t gon’ bother none of y’all. Just wanna be with some…friendly faces.”

“Dad, __stop__.” Daryl finally spoke up. He knew saying something meant it was gonna be hell to pay later on tonight, but Will wasn’t helping anything by egging Shane on. He was gonna get them kicked out, and then it’d just be the two of them in a truck that was liable to break down at any moment, wandering from walker-filled town to town with no one to watch their backs but themselves. Daryl wasn’t stupid. He knew they’d never make it on their own permanently. They __needed__  this.

Will turned to look at him. He’d seen that look before. The last time he ended up being on the receiving end of a beating so bad his dad made him stay home from school for a week to avoid any questions from faculty and staff. “Who the __fuck__  do you think you-”

“You’d do best,” Shane pushed past Glenn and got directly into Will’s face. Daryl’s hand rested on the gun in the waist of his pants. Just in case. “to listen to your boy there. What’s your name, kid?”

“Don’t you talk to my-”

“Daryl. Daryl Dixon.”

“Well, Daryl Dixon, it seems like you’re the only one with any sense out of the two of y’all.” Shane gave Will one last glare, then backed up and spat on the ground next to him. “And that gun ain’t no toy, boy, give it back to Mr. Dixon here before you hurt someone. Or yourself.”

Daryl glared at him. “ ‘s mine now.” Shane looked at him, then back to his dad, then back to him and laughed, running a hand down his face.

“Alright, kid. Whatever you say.” He glanced back at Will, whose fingers were clenching like he was just itching to throw a punch at the cop. “Control your little psychopath.” And with that Shane turned around and headed back towards whatever he was doing before they’d arrived. He stopped at Glenn, who was kicking up dirt with his dusty shoes. “Whatever happens…it’s on you.” Then he was gone.

“Well,” Glenn walked over to the two of them with a nervous smile on his face, and placed a hand on Daryl’s shoulder. “Honestly, that went a hell of a lot better than I expected.”

 

* * *

 

 

Will had never been a conversational kind of guy. He wasn’t the kind of guy to ask Daryl how school had been, or what he wanted to eat for dinner, or find out what he wanted to be when he grew up. He didn’t speak just to hear himself do so. Even with that, complete silence from him had Daryl worried. After the scene with Shane, Glenn had took them around to try and introduce them to everyone else in the camp. There was a nice, if cautious, Hispanic family that Will completely ignored when Glenn took them over for introductions. The children had immediately ran into their tent when they saw Glenn walking towards them with the two of them trailing behind, but the father and mother at least tried to introduce themselves and make small talk, until they noticed that Will wasn’t too keen on the idea of talking at the moment, and went back inside their tent with one final smile at Daryl.

Then there was the older guy sitting in a lawn chair perched atop a rusty RV with a shotgun across his lap.

“Hey Dale! Come down here for a second.” The old man peered over the edge of the RV with a strange expression on his face before he climbed down. “This is Will and Daryl Dixon. Found them heading towards Atlanta and brought them back with me.”

“Oh God, that whole city’s a shit show.” Will said nothing, just continued looking at the RV. Glenn laughed nervously.

“Yeah…Shane wasn’t too happy about it, but, you know. Shane.”

“When is Shane happy about anything.” The older man shook his head. Then, as if he’d just noticed he was there, he bent down to look Daryl in the eye. “And hello there, are you Will or Daryl.”

Daryl took a couple of steps back from the strangely wide-eyed gaze of Dale. His dad still said nothing. “Um…Daryl.”

“How old are you?”

“Nine.”

Dale looks at him curiously again, and glances at Will once more. “Be careful around here, Daryl. We have watch set up, but you can’t see everything in the woods here. Walkers don’t usually head this far in, but you never know. Try not to go wandering around too much on your own.”

“I know.” Daryl looked down at his shoes, resisting the urge to put his finger in his mouth. “’m not stupid.”

Dale glanced over at Will one last time. “No…I bet you aren’t. Nice meeting you two.” Then he headed back up the ladder of his RV and took his seat once more.

Glenn glanced off to the sunset in the distance. “Dinner’s about to be served, so I guess you can meet everyone else then.” Glenn, more than likely, spoke more to Daryl than to Will, since Daryl was seemingly the only one entertaining Glenn’s welcome squad. He wasn’t sure where they were going, but Daryl followed dutifully behind him, Will still trailing along being a looming, silent figure. “We definitely need to introduce you to Carl. He’s your age, really cool kid. I think you’ll like him. Carol and Sophia, too. I __think__  Sophia might be a little older than you, but they’re both super sweet. Oh! And-”

“Alright, Miss Saigon, that’s enough.” Well, Will had finally decided to join the conversation. Daryl glanced over to see Glenn roll his eyes and mouth ‘ _ _really__ ’. “We’re just gonna set up our tent and head in for the night.” Will had walked up behind Daryl and rested a hand on his shoulder.

“Are-are you __sure__? You guys don’t want anything to eat?”

“Nah, we’re good. Aren’t we, D?” His hand tightened on Daryl’s shoulder painfully. He saw Glenn look quickly at Will’s vice on his shoulder.

“Yeah, ‘m good.”

“Well…Alright. If you change your mind…” Will nodded, and used his grip to steer Daryl back towards their truck. He’d gone back to the silent treatment, his hand still gripping Daryl’s shoulder with a bruising force. Daryl averted his eyes when they walked past Dale’s RV and he saw the man looking down at them from his perch, shaking his head.

When they got back to the truck Will started moving to the side the items he’d hurriedly packed into the trunk earlier that day. It was strange. Even though he knew that it was just a few hours earlier, so much had already happened that it felt like it was a lifetime ago he was worrying about how to tell his dad he’d missed the bus. Daryl had learned that the world was ending, saw his dad almost get eaten, shot a walker in the street, then ended up in a group of people he didn’t know with his dad who now refused to talk to him all in the span of a few hours. It was an all around shitty situation. All he wanted was to have dinner and go to sleep. Instead he was watching his dad pull their ratty old tent out of the truck and set it up in a position where he could see everything and everyone, but no one could see them. When Will was satisfied with the set up, he gathered the rest of their things, the pillows and blankets Daryl was surprised his dad had remembered, and a black backpack from the truck, and headed into the tent. He steeled himself, and then followed after his dad.

 

* * *

 

Everyone knew. It wasn’t any secret that Will Dixon was an alcoholic mess. The neighbors knew, the teachers knew, hell, even young Daryl knew how much of a mess his dad was. He’d lost count of the amount of times he’d gotten home from school and walked in to see his dad passed out on the kitchen floor surrounded by broken glass. No amount of poking or prodding would wake the man up. Those were the nights when he knew he’d be eating either microwaved macaroni or a frozen tv dinner. Those were the nights he’d go to sleep praying that his dad would miraculously get better and stop drinking himself to an early grave. Those were the nights Daryl knew he didn’t believe in God. And even now, with the world turned to shit and dead men walking the streets, thinks were know different. Because Daryl knew Will Dixon could only ever find comfort at the bottom of a bottle.

“I’ll tell ya, D, this whole camp’s gon’ go ta shit!” Will had been drinking since they’d gotten their tent set up. His words were slurring together and his eyes were starting to get that hard glint to them. That look usually meant he was fighting with the demons in own head, looking for any excuse to justify his bad habits. “Nothin’ but a buncha niggers

‘n spics, fuckin’ chinks ‘n goddamn **_**_pigs_**_**. Fuckin’ lowlives the lot of ‘em. Someone oughta swoop in ‘n take care o’ the whole **_**_lot_**_**  of ‘em. Ain’t that right, boy?”

Will gestured at him with the bottle of whatever brown liquor was his current poison of choice. Some of the contents spill out on the ground and Will cursed loudly.

“’n you!” Will started again. “Takin’ up after that fuckin’ __chink__. Gettin’ all cozy ‘n shit with ‘em. Yer a fuckin’ blood traitor.”

The first slap caught him off guard. The back of Will’s hand striking across his face sent him falling to the hard earth beneath them and slamming his head on the ground. It was like in one of those old cartoons he’d watch back when there was nothing else on, and the cat would have the little birds circling around his head and the cuckoo clock noise would play. Except there was no birds, just black and white dots dancing in front of his eyes, and instead of the clock it was the sounds of Will’s labored breathing as he struggled to take off his belt and made his way towards him.

“’m sorry, Dad!” For him, the worst part wasn’t the strike of leather against his skin. It was that split second before when he could hear the crack of the belt echoing in the air right before it struck his skin. The pain he could deal with, it wasn’t anything he hadn’t felt before. But that sound, that brief moment of hesitation before the pain would bloom along his skin. It was just enough time to brace himself for what was coming, but never enough time to do anything about it.

Daryl lost track of how long it lasted. It could have been ten seconds, it could have been a minute. But eventually Will tired himself out, just like he always did, and tossed his belt to the side. And without a word, he crawled over to where he’d set up his blanket, and passed out.

 He’d never admit it to anyone, but Daryl often wondered how hard it would be to kill his dad. Yeah, he was bigger and stronger, older. But he was a drunk. It’d be too easy, especially now. Will was already asleep before his head even hit the pillow. Daryl still had the gun in his book bag. It would take two seconds, one of hesitation and one to pull the trigger, and then he’d be gone. It’d be so easy.

Instead, he crawled out of the tent and sat against it, knees to his chest, and fought off tears. He wouldn’t cry. He looked over and saw that Dale was still sitting in his chair on top of the RV doing watch. Except instead of watching for walkers he was watching a pair of blonde women sitting around a campfire someone had built. But they weren’t watching Dale, they were looking at him with his face that was beginning to bruise and his red eyes. They were both wearing twin looks he’d seen so often. Of course they heard. It was a tiny camp, after all. Usually Will was a lot smarter when punishing him, but he was drunk so everything was so much worse. They wanted to come over, ask if he was okay, see if he needed anything. But was it their place? He wasn’t their kid, and who were they to try and tell a man how to raise his son? He’d seen that look so often.

“Hey man…you okay?” Daryl flinched at Glenn’s sudden appearance. He’d been too busy staring at the women to notice anything around him. “I just…saw you sitting and figured you might want something to eat.” He saw the paper place in Glenn’s hand holding what looked like canned beans and meat of some kind.

“’m okay, not hungry.”

“You sure? I mean, it’s just gonna get thrown away anyway so you might as well.”

Daryl glanced from the plate in Glenn’s hand and his cautious smile to the tent where his dad was passed out, then took the plate. He suppressed the urge to groan when Glenn sat next to him. Instead, he ignored him and started eating. The smell of the food reminded him that he hadn’t had anything since yesterday afternoon.

“So, uh, what happened to your face?”

“Fell.” Daryl said between bites of his food. Will hadn’t taught him much, but he had taught him not to talk with his mouth full.

“On your face?”

“Happens sometimes.”

“Fall on your arm, too?” Daryl hadn’t noticed that the welts had already started to rise.

“Nah, scratched myself.”

“How?”

“Don’t ‘member.”

“Thought you said you fell?” Daryl sighed. Glenn was really starting to push at his buttons.

“Yeah, scratched myself on the way down.”

“You don’t,” Glenn looked at their tent nervously. “You don’t have to lie for him. Why are you letting him get away with this?”

“He’s my dad. Don’t have no one else.” Daryl paused for a second. “’n I’m not lying. I fell. Then I scratched myself. Shit happens.”

“Yeah…shit happens.” Glenn pushed himself off the ground, but instead of leaving he continued to stare down at Daryl. And Daryl continued to stare down at the food he was shoveling into his mouth. “Well next time you ‘fall’ and ‘scratch yourself’ come find me, and we’ll go somewhere until your sure you won’t be falling anymore. Or even Dale. You’re just a kid, Daryl. Someone’s gotta watch out for you. Guess it’s on me.” He hesitated once more and looked at the opening to the tent. “And tell your dad that if you keep __falling__  we’re gonna have a problem.”

Daryl watched his retreating figure as Glenn walked off. A storm of confusing emotions were brewing in his mind, and he wasn’t sure what to do with them. On one hand who the hell was Glenn to try and step in where he wasn’t needed. They weren’t friends, they weren’t family, they were just strangers who had happen to meet earlier in the day. Like Shane said earlier: for all he knew Daryl and Will were just biding their time to rob the whole lot of them blind and leave them just a rapidly shrinking reflection in the rear view mirror. But on the other hand he couldn’t stop thinking about the rapidly darkening bruise he could feel on his cheek and the welts on his skin. Will was a pretty awful person. Objectively there wasn’t much to like about him. But he was still the only family he had left. His mom had burned herself to a crisp ages ago, and Merle was in God Knows Where, South Carolina. Hopefully he had found himself a group of alright people and was safe, but the fact of the matter is, as much as he was loathe to admit it, when it came to the Dixon family line they were it. And family stuck together no matter what. That’s how it always was gonna be.

He looked down at the cold slop of meat and beans on his plate. Suddenly he wasn’t all that hungry anymore. He sat the plate down and went back into the tent to try and get some sleep. Knowing his luck, tomorrow would be a long day.

 

* * *

 

He woke to the sounds of Will shuffling around their tent. Once he sat up from the corner he’d been curled in, he watched his dad hunched over and packing his backpack with what looked like some of the rounds he’d brought with him and his hunting knife.

“Where ya goin’?” Will startled and turned around to look at him.

“Shit boy, how long ya been up?”

“Jus’ woke up.” Daryl resisted a yawn and rubbed at his tired eyes, and instantly regretted it when he remembered the bruise. He saw Will look directly at it, remorse written all over your face. Will brought a finger to his mouth and started chewing at the skin around his nail.

“ _ _Shit__ , uh, how ya feelin’?”

Daryl shrugged. “Fine. Had worse.” And he was. And he had. Much worse. He did take a little smug satisfaction in the way Will flinched at that, though. “Just tired.”

Will nodded and gave him a hesitant smile. “Some of the guys wanted t’go into town ‘n see what we can scrounge up, so imma be gone most of the day, but yeah, you go on ahead ‘n get yer beauty sleep. Chink said it’ll be real routine, so don’t worry or nothin’.” He slung his backpack over his shoulder. He stepped over Daryl to leave the tent, but paused once he was halfway out of it and looked back at him. “If anyone asks..” He gestured to his face, and of course that’s what he was worried about.

“Fell in the dark. Shit happens.”

“That it does.” Will laughed and ruffled his hair. It took everything in Daryl not to flinch away when he saw Will reaching towards him. And then he was gone.

If he’d known that was the last time he’d ever see Will Dixon maybe he would have said bye.  

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is definitely inspired by JamesJohnEye's Founding Fathers fic. I wanted to draw from my experiences growing up as a poor kid in the deep south and then this happened. Title comes from a poem called At The Gate by Henrik Nordbrandt


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